I know that I've said I was in love with a couple of other SOAD songs in the past. But this time, I really mean it. This time, it's forever!

I listened to the Hypnotize album several dozen times while biking the last few weeks. All of a sudden, "Stealing Society" (the title of which has no discernible relationship to its lyrics) jumped out of the pack today. It is relentless, baby -- you barely get a chance to take a breath during this song. I probably listened to it at least ten times today. And when I say I'm in love, you'd best believe I'm in LUV, L-U-V!

I had originally intended to begin this post very differently. This is what I thought the first lines of the song were:

Blue skies

Watching it all, fading

Blue skies

Living it all, fading

A little later in this post, I will tell the story of my last Cape Cod bike ride last month, which took place on the second day of a nasty summer nor'easter with steady rain and 40-mph winds. Featuring a song about "blue skies" on such a post was a way of showing off my very well-developed sense of irony.

I'm sure most of the readers of "2 or 3 Lines" also have well-developed sensibilities when it comes to appreciating irony. But maybe some of you didn't get an "A" in your Irony 101 class when you were in college.

Get that? That was some more irony! You're getting a heapin' helpin' o' irony today! (Did you catch the reference to The Beverly Hillbillies theme song there?)

Or maybe that wasn't actually irony at all, but my calling it irony when it wasn't was done ironically! (Still with me? I'm moving pretty fast!)

In any event, when I returned from my ride, I went online to see the lyrics to "Stealing Society." Imagine my dismay when I discovered that the actual lyrics were as follows:

I didn't try to ride my bike the first day of that nor'easter. Here's what the windsock on our belvedere looked like that day.

A summer nor'easter

My 15-year-old son got sufficiently bored that he joined his older sister for a manly yoga session on the sun porch. (Wait until the guys from the basketball team see this picture.)

Peter and Caroline's yoga session

But I got antsy enough the second day that I gave it a shot, riding from about mile 2 to mile 9 or so, then back. It was miserable. Steady rain, high winds, leaves and sticks and all sorts of other crap on the trail . . . and I was not well-equipped in terms of raingear.

I stopped to take some video and quote Cape Cod-loving John F. Kennedy at the Pleasant Lake General Store.

I saw very few other riders that day. Think I should have taken the hint?

Guapo's (Brewster, MA)

My turnaround point was Guapo's, a little fish-taco-and-burrito joint that's right on the rail trail. After a beer and a ground-beef and guacamole burrito, I reluctantly exited this warm and cozy little spot and rode back to where I started -- wet, cold, and with my backside covered with dirt and sand kicked up by my rear wheel.

On my way back, I stopped to shoot some video of Sesuit Harbor in East Dennis, a very busy harbor that is also the home of the Sesuit Cafe. (Sorry for the noise, but it was very windy that day.)

Sesuit Harbor was once the home of the Shiverick Shipyard, where eight of the finest clipper ships to ever sail were built in the decade or so before the Civil War.

A Shiverick Shipyard clipper ship

I decided more Mexican food was in order, and made cheese enchiladas (with meat sauce), black beans, and rice for my family that night.